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Schools Facing Cuts if Lunches Aren’t Paid For

The lunch line at Intermediate School 61 in Corona, Queens. Some of the students’ parents are behind in what they are supposed to pay for the lunches, and the school’s principal has been trying to collect the money.Credit
Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times

Of the 2,200 students at Intermediate School 61 in Corona, Queens, 86 percent receive free cafeteria lunches. Some others pay a reduced price, and some are supposed to pay full price.

But not all of their parents pay what they are supposed to, and recently, the school’s principal, Joseph Lisa, has been spending a lot of time trying to collect money from them.

He has cornered them in the hallways. He has offered them gentle reminders after school meetings. He has called them and sent them letters suggesting payment plans for debts that might amount to $20 or $30.

Since 2004, the city has absorbed at least $42 million in unpaid lunch fees. But that is a luxury it can no longer afford, according to the Education Department, which has weathered several rounds of budget cuts, with more to come. The department has been telling principals to collect overdue lunch money or risk having it docked from their school budgets.

Of the city’s 1,600 schools, 1,043 owe a collective $2.5 million to the department for meals served in the first three months of this school year. That puts them on track to be $8 million behind by the end of the school year.

New York City’s lunch money problem is costly and complicated, but not unique. The economy has school administrators all over the country scratching for savings even as more parents are falling behind in lunch fees. A September survey by the School Nutrition Association, a professional organization, showed that in 2009-10, 34 percent of school districts saw an increase from the previous school year in the number of meals not paid for.

The school district in Albuquerque was among several last year to start serving cold sandwiches and milk, instead of full hot meals, to students whose parents had not paid what they owed. In Wake County, N.C., those students may eat as many fruits and vegetables as they want, but not the rest of the lunch offerings.

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A cafeteria worker at Intermediate School 61 checks whether students have enough in their accounts to cover the cost of lunch. Otherwise, they must pay cash.Credit
Michael Kirby Smith for The New York Times

In Louisiana, some districts did not feed the children whose parents were in arrears at all, until, in November, the State Legislature passed a law ordering that they be given at least a snack, while directing districts to notify child welfare authorities if a student got just a snack on more than three consecutive days. Framingham, Mass., hired a constable to hand-deliver notices to parents whose bills were still unpaid after the schools had sent them several letters alerting them to their debt.

“We’re in the business of feeding kids, so it’s heart-wrenching to all of us to have to get parents to pay this way,” said Brendan Ryan, director of food services at Framingham Public Schools.

In New York City, the Education Department warned principals in the spring that they would have to collect the money, but after principals protested, they were given a grace period. In January, the new schools chancellor, Cathleen P. Black, told principals that they had until Feb. 16.

On Monday, after vociferous complaints from principals, the department once again put off the deadline, though it was unclear for how long. In a statement, Natalie Ravitz, a department spokeswoman, said, “We really need families to cooperate with us in this effort so that we aren’t taking money out of the classroom.”

But some principals said that that was exactly what would happen unless the city came up with an alternative, which seems unlikely.

“The school has become the collection agency, and that’s not their business,” said Randi Herman, the first vice president of the city’s principals’ union.

The issue came up during a City Council committee hearing on Tuesday, where Councilman Robert Jackson, chairman of the education committee, said that deducting unpaid lunch fees would deal “a serious blow to already overstretched school budgets.”

New York City charges $1.50 for a school lunch. Three quarters of the city’s students qualify for free lunch, or lunch at a reduced price of 25 cents; even some of the students charged the reduced price have fallen behind.

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A poster encouraging parents to apply for reduced-price school lunches featured Dustin Keller of the New York Jets.

Students are eligible for free or reduced-price lunches if their family incomes fall below the levels set by the federal government. For free lunches, the cutoff is $28,665 for a family of four; for reduced-price lunches, it is $40,793.

School lunches are subsidized by the federal government, which spent $9.8 billion nationwide on the program in the 2009 fiscal year.

Under city rules, elementary and middle school students who are behind on payments but come to school without their own lunches must be fed the same meal as everyone else. High schools are not required to feed such students.

Principals say economic troubles have forced parents into delinquency, but some also say that there are many children, often in families of recent immigrants, who would qualify for free lunch but have not turned in eligibility forms. The Education Department has strongly encouraged parents to complete the forms, even offering prizes, including a trip for two to the Pro Bowl in Hawaii, paid for by the Jets.

On the Web site of the Robert H. Goddard Junior High School in Ozone Park, Queens, above the announcements on exams coming up, attendance requirements for graduation and uniform policies, there is this message: “If you owe a lunch balance, you are required to pay for it.”

At Public School 312 in Bergen Beach, Brooklyn, the principal, Linda Beal-Benigno, said she had tried to persuade parents who were in arrears to pack lunches for their children, but the strategy had not always worked.

“Numerous children throw out the lunches they bring from home on the days we serve pizza and end up eating in the school anyway,” Ms. Beal-Benigno said.

Nearly half of schools that owed money from September until November owed from $1,000 to $10,000. The schools with the highest balances were I.S. 145 in Jackson Heights, Queens ($25,598); P.S. 276 in Canarsie, Brooklyn ($21,907); and P.S. 24 in the Riverdale section of the Bronx ($20,222).

Mr. Lisa, the principal at the intermediate school in Corona, where the overdue balance is about $3,000 for the three months, said he and his colleagues had been forced into an awkward role. “It’s the same as if I were the manager at Target and told the customers, ‘Please, don’t take our merchandise without paying for it; however, if you do it, we won’t stop you,’ ” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on February 9, 2011, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Schools Facing Cuts if Lunches Aren’t Paid For. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe